


all the ashes in my wake

by Marianne_Dashwood



Series: tell me what it's like to burn [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, From the Festival, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, lmao can you tell i miss doing english lit, self-neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28926285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marianne_Dashwood/pseuds/Marianne_Dashwood
Summary: In the end, it is easier for Wil to pretend that he has always been hateful.
Series: tell me what it's like to burn [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146032
Comments: 4
Kudos: 66





	all the ashes in my wake

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [you're human tonight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27408277) by [chrysalizzm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalizzm/pseuds/chrysalizzm). 



> 'Oh this animatic looks intresting.... oh minecraft streams, I can watch that while I play, that'll be fun.... oh wait there's lore? a plot? Hmm, well I don't want to get too fixated on things but, oh my god is that a FOUND FAMILY??'
> 
> Yeah, so. Here we are. While I'm here I'm gonna shell out for some of my other minecraft based fic, but instead of the SMP it's a bunch of lovely lads and lasses called Achievement Hunter and they've been doing shit kinda like the SMP for YEARS and my latest series is inspired by both them and the smp! If you enjoy revolution, cool fights, found family and a lot (a LOT) of hurt/comfort, please please go read them!!!
> 
> So, before we jump into it, this was 100% by the amazing fic (hopefully) linked above, and if you haven't read that then this really isn't going to make much sense, or you could just read it as a character study and miss out on all the awesomeness that is the original fic, so, if you wanna take the superior option and go and check out you're human tonight, I'll be waiting when you get back!
> 
> as always, my tumblr and twitter are open (marianne-dash-wood and @MJDashwood respectively), please come say hi if you are so inclined, and please leave a kudos and comment if you enjoyed!

In the end, it is easier to pretend that he has always been hateful. What good did he do, really, apart from create war and horror and pain, what he did he do other than inspire traitors and stand by and watch as his baby brother is killed in a duel he could have stopped. 

It starts small, in all the ways that don’t matter. It starts in the mirror of his bedroom at home, as his siblings thunder up and down the stairs and arguments ring out over the state of the bathroom, who was supposed to do the dishes and missing hair brushes. It starts when he watches his father leave for his trips that take him so far away, and he is the one in charge of the home. It’s a happy childhood. It is also a damaging one. (Parents don’t often believe that those two can exist together, but they do).

(Phil would rather forget, keep hold of the good memories and only the good memories, and ignore the days where his children would have arguments that turned into fights, where mealtimes were icy silences and his children learned where on the table to sit to avoid conflict. He only wants to remember the good, and honestly, who can blame him? His sons learned well).

It stays small, as he hops from world to world with his brothers at his side, sometimes all, sometimes only one, but never alone. It stays small when he first arrives in the huge land of idyllic green grass and crystal blue oceans, and he could spend weeks singing the world anew, this world made with love, for love. 

It grows, when they take the directive, “Just carve yourselves out a home,” a little too seriously, and suddenly the dominos are falling, and war is declared, and the small cruel thing in Wilbur’s heart blossoms under the attention. 

There is a part of him that still, still rejects that. It was a game, until it wasn’t. (He forgets that, forgotten in the blindsiding of betrayal and the overwhelming joy of victory). It wasn’t supposed to be about glory, or even independence or justice, these lofty ideals he grew up with. It was supposed to be about his family, about keeping his family safe (Because he will always be a big brother and he will always protect them, as he was raised to do so and that will both doom him and save him).

One day, Niki asked him why they kept doing this (why, when it was just a game), and his brother answered for him, because they have always known each other inside out (until they don’t), “Because Wil’s a stubborn bastard and he never lets anything go, I should know, I broke his guitar once and he still hasn’t forgiven me,” and the truth is buried under the subsequent bickering but it’s true. 

Will has always swallowed his anger; on occasion, he lets it out through melody but always to an audience of ghosts. He always swallowed his anger, and it burns (it keeps him alive, all those long winter nights when it his brothers were asleep and his father was gone), it burns and it keeps him moving and he douses it in smiles and love and flowers, and it stays a small ember, and he does not feed the fire. 

He forgets too, that it was a game, until it wasn’t, and it was a game because they are children, all of them, and his father would tell him that two decades is barely adulthood, and yes his brothers are younger but he is still young, so young to be commanding an army, commanding a nation. 

His fire keeps the others beside him; they listen as he shapes words and speeches and songs and they blaze with revolution and righteousness and their bonds burn bright in the face of overwhelming odds. 

It sparks in the election, it sparks on the final day, and in a moment, it feels like cold water is dumped over his head. 

And then there is pain, and there is hurt, and there is that fire, and it bites and snaps at him as he climbs out of his respawn point only to flee from the country he built with his own fucking hands. 

His lungs burn but it is better than the waves of grief and betrayal and fear that take hold of him when he does not allow the blaze to grow; grief for that beautiful flag, razed to the ground, betrayal from all who had once stood by him, believed in him, told him they were his friend and fear, fear because maybe this would have been alright if it had only been him but now his brother has been stripped of his home and his nation and he is just as much in danger as he is. 

Wil’s always been once for revenge. He has always retaliated. But that was back when he was raised on fair play and justice and he was on the same level as his brothers. He is powerless (powerless to protect, powerless to help, not his brother, not his friends, not his nation,) and there is nothing, not a single fucking thing he can do. 

It is easier to fan the flame, easier to list and list and list every single person that  ~~ still was ~~ had once been his friend. It is easier to swallow the flame, let it fill him up because if he stopped to think about it then he would drown in how fucking terrified he is. (Is he consuming it, or is it consuming him?)

It is easier to snap, to throw his fists fruitlessly against stone, to belittle his brother, to blame the world above, than it is to admit that he is terrified. It is easier to do this than to realise that he failed.

_ (“Can you keep them safe, Wil? Can you do that for me?” _

_ “Yes, dad,”  _ **_Are you proud of me yet, are you, I’m not a fighter, I’m not a warrior, I’m just me but I’ll protect them, but are you proud of me?_ **

_ “Good boy,”) _

A kingdom built in a rocky ravine (empires have been built on less), and he has nothing except one brother who is under the thumb of the selfsame man who banished them, and another brother who looks at him like he doesn’t recognise him.

It sets off waves of paranoia, sleepless nights as he runs through every interaction he has ever had with every friend he has ever had and tries to work out at which point they started to hate him. 

He has nothing. They took it all from him, his home, his family, his safety. He has nothing at all. 

There is a man (?) in front of him in this cavern, this fall from grace and this man, this friend, this foe, reaches for him and  _ pulls  _ and Wil-

Wil has nothing but his fire, nothing but his hatred and rage, and if it goes he goes, if the warmth is pulled from him then he will be numb and have nothing at all, they have taken everything from him and now they want to take the only thing keeping him alive, keeping his heart beating, get out, get out,  _ get out _ , he had lost everything but this was his, it was his and **_no one could take it from him -_ **

He laughs as the man (enemy, saviour, foe, friend,  ~~_ wait, please, help me- _ ~~ ~~)~~ staggers back, and his smile cracks into a million pieces as he watches his brother realise, in steps so slow they might as well be a funeral march, that this is exactly who he is, who he always has been. 

In the end, it is easier to pretend that he is, and always has been, hateful. But what happens when suddenly he is not?

(there’s a story here, a girl destroying her sister’s words because children are hateful and spiteful and they do not think though the things they do, there is a story here about children destroying the things they love because they cannot fathom anyone taking them from them, there is a story here about learning to share. There is a story here about how selfishness isn't always bad, but how it always consumes.)

He burns. He burns and watches his brother flinch away as if his touch is flame itself. He burns as he spits and swears and rages that they will pay, they will all pay, the match shaking in his hands as he places the TNT and it sings to him as he once sang to the world, a crooning hymnal of destruction.

To make others feel as you do. The most human thing of all. He was always good at it; songs to words, he always knew what to say to make you feel how he wanted you to feel. This was both a good thing (words to revolution, words that lead armies and inspired countries) and a bad thing (sharp digs under your skin that bury themselves too deep, knowing exactly where to poke to make it really and truly hurt,). And right now, swallowing all the pain and hurt and fear is anger and hatred, and that is all that Wil feels.

He has always been the heart, but he thinks now that his heart is too charred to beat, that all that is left is ashes, and so it is easier to let that fire sweep over him and immolate him alive and let them all feel that agony, than it is to try and construct a person when nothing beside remains. 

He dreams of fire, and there is ash and blood in his mouth when he wakes, shivering and shaking, and he doesn’t feel entirely human anymore. Maybe he never was. Maybe the moment the arrow pierced his heart as he fled his homeland, he has been nothing but a walking corpse. 

He doesn’t sleep much anymore, but between every blink there is a vision of red and orange, a sunset of destruction, and they are destroying his country brick by brick and they can’t even do destruction right, they can’t even make a martyr properly, they’re puppets and he will burn the strings, he will burn their wooden hollowness  ~~ and the fire will leave his chest and he will be free- ~~

It hurts; he feels like a sinner, ash and sackcloth and all, pulling at his hair as he realises that no one will help him, save his enemy, not a single one of them helped him when he needed it the most, not even after he laid down his life for them, not even when he had to watch his little brother bleed out in a control room for their freedom,  _ not a single fucking one of them. _

The atmosphere at the festival is an explosion ready for a match, a panic attack waiting to be triggered, that hitch of breath before it all spirals out of control, and he doesn’t know when he decided to die, but he knows that he decided that living was far too painful to continue. (And he promised to keep his brothers safe and look, look at where that has led them, surely they would all just be happier if they were dead)

( _ That’s not true _ , there’s a voice in the back of his mind, echoing and drifting like the final snowfall, made up of all the tears he never shed, and that voice sounds like his brother but it’s all him, and the fire eats it up, conscience and all)

But then the atmosphere settles, and no, that monster may have taken his nation, his brothers, every single friend he has ever had but he will not,  _ he will not _ take Wil’s rage, the only thing keeping him upright.

( _ It’s consumed you _ , and the voice is barely anything now, the faintest memory of the person he might once had been,  _ it has taken all that you love and it has swallowed it whole and it will take you too, it is a rotting stinking thing and you let it in because you were afraid to be numb, because it is easier to burn alive to keep the people you love warm than it is to build a fire, because it is easier to hate than it is to grieve) _

There is a cool touch to his face, and it is the first break in the flames that he has felt in weeks, and he -

Imagine coming back to live in a home after a fire. A fire so devastating that there is nothing but ash and charcoal and soot clinging to the walls, there is only a skeleton where there was once a home. A fire that gouged itself on the happiness that once found a home there, and turned this place hollow, once hallowed to cursed.

The next time he is aware of himself, a breath has stuttered in his chest, his chest where there is only a gentle warmth, and the flames are there but they are comforting, they are the kind that he used to roast marshmallows with, they are the kind that ask him, gently, to pick up his guitar and to sing. Wil no longer burns, but he is hollow, and he gasps, and for the first time, he does not inhale smoke. 

His knees give out, and they both go down, because everything that had kept him going was gone, and he was empty, and the mist of numb terror and grief would be descending upon him at any moment, only there is someone screaming and he cannot escape into the echoing expanse of his mind.

There are hands on him and around him, and he is grateful for the warmth because he is so cold now, so cold without the inferno inside him, and he cannot breathe without it, he cannot live without it, why would he take it from him, he needs it, he needs it.

He needs it until his chest moves of its own accord, and he blinks in the sunlight and he can hear his brothers shouting his name and someone is still screaming and there are so many voices it hurts but he opens his eyes anyway, and pulls the disparate pieces of who he once had been into mismatch of a human being. 

He didn’t need the fire. He didn’t need it. But he still ached for it, ached in the hollow empty way, a hurt scorched deep into his charred bones. 

He aches for it, but his brothers fit into his arms and into his side and he would not trade the smiles on their faces or their tears of relief for a single moment. He aches for it, but they fit together like a missing puzzle piece, like coming home.

(The world is fixed. This is a miracle. There are dozens of worlds where this isn’t the case, where the fire swallows him inside and out, where the only thing that finally douses the flames is a sword between his ribs. They’ve been saved, and once his mind can work again, he wants to repay that favour in any way he can.)

The word madness is bitter in his throat, and he flinches when the others mention it, like they could divide that part of him away from their brother, from the person they really love. He doesn’t want to forget that he was the one that stoked the flames in the first place, he can’t and shouldn’t forget that they were his flames in the first place, and he can still feel their embers, because fires like his never really go away. 

He shouldn’t forget, either, that he is not the only one that controls this. Not on a literal level, having weird extra powers as a minor god level, though he suspects that might help in the future, but in a sappy as shit, friendship is a power unto itself kind of way. 

Even hollow, even empty, it gives him the clarity that he could not see through smoke and flames. The world pulled back into focus when the firestorm was plucked, hook line and sinker from his head, and all he could see… all he could see were his friends. His family.

The people he loved so much that he built a nation for them. (Oh, how alike he and his saviour are)

In the end, (and what an oxymoron, because life continues always, past endings, past saving, past heartbreak and joy and love and loss), in the end, there is a flame in his chest. It is not anger, or hatred or pain, it simply  _ is _ . It flares when his brothers steal his things or pull him into their shenenigians, and it flares when that idiot of a goat president won’t stop being a fucking irrtating piece of shit (because, as always, somethings never change), and it flares when he helps out in the bakery and flour hangs in the air like snow, and it flares when he looks to his father and wonders if he is proud of him yet ( _ yes, yes, yes, always, always, Wil, always) _ . 

In the end, a fire is not fed on hatred alone, and it hungers in a way that makes Wil throw open his curtains everyday and run headlong into another adventure, rather than waking up with ash in his throat and smoke in his lungs. 

And if Wil gets used to the ache, he always knows where, and who to go to. 


End file.
